Though the world is moving fast towards ecommerce, the truth of the matter is, even after years of the buzz, it constitutes just one per cent of retail commerce. The truth is, offline stores are far from done yet.
And, Bengaluru-based Interaction One knows how to capture this market well. For the last four months, it has been piloting a project on 100 Feet Road in Indiranagar, and VR Mall in Whitefield through the app, Mobmerry, and an IoT device, called Beacon. In two weeks, it will cover the “entire city virtually”. Expansion to other tier-1 Indian cities is also in the pipeline.
Krishna Prasad’s startup, Mobmerry, is a retail discovery app. It connects retailers of lifestyle products and services, such as fashion, home & decor, food and fitness, with their potential customers using geo-location. Simply put, it is setting up virtual, personalied shops in your smartphones, where you get alerts about deals of your liking from shops in your locality.
Prasad begins, “Once you sign up on the app through Facebook, our algorithm captures your tastes and preferences. It then notifies you about products you might like, and stores they are available in your locality. Click ‘Buy Now’ button, and the product will be delivered to you within two hours. And if you plan to buy it later from the store, add it to your ‘Wishlist’. If there’s a discount coming up for this product, you will be notified that as well.”
The second beneficiary is the retailer. He explains, “Mobmerry allows shopkeepers to push notifications about goods, or even food promotions, to their customers in and around where they are located. It also helps them to know which product is doing well, and which one is not.”
This proximity marketing is made possible by the white-coloured IoT box that is fixed outside 80 stores in Indiranagar (Avirate, Celio, Guess, Jack & Jones, Kazo, Lee, Vans, Vero Moda, Wrangler etc.) and the 220 stores at VR Mall. Beacon — a Bluetooth Low Energy app — emits radio signals when a customer crosses the shop or enters it. He explains, “It records information such as what time a customer entered a store, for how long he was there, and which section he spent the most time in. It also interacts with your phone to show you indoor routes in a mall.”
Numbers of validation are trickling in. He tells us, “We’ve had 40,000 downloads, and 16-17 lakh worth of lifestyle products have been purchased through the app. Merchants around the country have been calling us to come to their cities.”
On iOS and Android.
Details: mobmerry.com
— Barkha Kumari